Thy Perfect Light
by etraytin
Summary: Side Story for the canon-divergence fic "Such A Winter's Day," this probably won't make sense to anyone who hasn't read at least as far as Chapter 24. Sam and Donna's first Christmas together, or their first Christmas together-apart. Part of the promised backfill of story between Chapters 23 and 24, pure fluff and romance.


Author's Note: Hi guys! Way back months ago when I was just starting Part Two of Such A Winter's Day, I skipped over the first couple months of Sam and Donna's dating relationship with the promise that I would go and fill in some of the missing details later. The most important scene I had in mind was what they did for Christmas, an important moment in any new relationship, and I decided I would somehow write it and post it at Christmastime. So here it is!

This is pure romantic fluff of the fluffiest sort, and while I suppose it can stand alone if you're into Sam/Donna and willing to roll with a lot of unexplored backstory, it's going to make a lot more sense if you've read at least as far as Chapter 24 of Such A Winter's Day. Go on, try it, maybe you'll like it! I have considered doing little short Christmas vignette pieces for my other multipart AU stories and posting them together (Ten Thousand Miles, Ourselves and Immortality, Acheiving Mediocrity, etc) but I don't know if there'd be much interest in that. Hope you all enjoy today's story, and that your holidays are proceeding in a happy fashion!

…...

"My god, Sam, this is going to be a disaster." Donna paced the length and breadth of her tiny bedroom, her fingers knotted together and a wild look in her eyes. "I don't know what I was thinking not canceling altogether. What if I get the question? No, that's stupid. Of course I'm going to get the question. What do I say?"

Sam sat on the bed and watched her, a little mystified, a little amused. He was very careful not to let the amusement show too much. "Donna, you've had press training from CJ Cregg. You've been dealing with career politicians for almost a decade. You know how to finesse a question you don't want to answer. If, you know, you don't want to answer it."

Donna whirled on him, blonde hair flying out behind her. "It's not that I don't want to answer!" she yelped, as though this were a ludicrous conclusion to jump to. "It's just that the answer is very complicated and the situation is evolving, but you try telling that to some people and it's suddenly a three-hour interrogation where you're trapped at a table with no escape-"

"Oh no, I understand," Sam assured her, tucking his tongue in his cheek. "You don't have to say anything at all. If you're ashamed of me..." It should not have been funny to make his girlfriend of five weeks scream in frustrated rage, but sometimes he was not a very good person. Besides, Donna was usually the one to keep her head when those around her were losing theirs, so it was always amusing to see the random things that caused her to unspool.

"I'm not ashamed of you!" she insisted, not losing an iota of volume. "It's just... it's not like that, I swear, but this is my family! They're vicious animals, Sam. If I display a moment's weakness about whether or not I'm seeing someone, they'll be on me like a pack of hyenas with a downed antelope. First it'll be the third degree about you, every detail of your background and past, what you do, what your prospects are, who your family is. And then it'll be why you're not with me, notwithstanding the fact that I've literally had my plane tickets booked since before you and I started dating, this thing is that new. That will not matter to them, and no matter what I say, I'm doomed." Donna had extremely effective breath control, Sam decided. He wouldn't have been able to say all of that without stopping once for air, and he'd had professional elocution lessons.

"Do you want me to go with you?" he offered. "I could rearrange some things..." He had his own Christmas plans, made months ago just like Donna's, but honestly he had little interest in going to see his family anyway, especially this year. His father and mother were attempting a reconciliation, and that was bound to be horrifyingly awkward for everyone, no matter what the outcome. Nobody talked about the other woman, or whether he was still seeing her, and Sam didn't really want to know either, but it did seem like that would complicate any efforts at rapprochement. Even a stint as a downed antelope in Wisconsin didn't seem so bad in comparison.

Donna's eyes went wide. "Oh no," she insisted. "No, no, no. You have to go do Christmas with your family! Everything's going really well for us right now and I don't want my aunts and uncles to have a chance to chase you away until we've been together a lot longer." She paused abruptly, both of them considering the implications of her stating a long-term plan like that.

"I'm not too easy to chase away," Sam assured her. Somehow a long-term plan didn't seem that intimidating, even only five weeks in. He and Donna had known each other for much longer than they'd been dating, after all. It wasn't as though he'd just met her. Long term was not out of the question. He reached out and took her hand, tugging her down to sit on the bed with him. "You love your family," he reminded her. "You tell me about them all the time."

She smiled a little. "Yeah, they just drive me crazy."

"I'm pretty sure that's what happens for most people," he assured her, pulling her into a one-armed hug. "It's a three day trip, you'll go, you'll eat all the foods you remember from Christmases as a child, you'll visit the family church, you'll see all the far-flung relatives you wouldn't see otherwise. You'll tell them your best stories from the White House, and let them marvel over the fact that out here in LA, it's seventy degrees this morning."

"Hmm, maybe."

Sam could feel her relaxing a little as he used his persuasive voice on her. She liked the persuasive voice unless they were arguing about something. "And when they ask if you're seeing someone, you can tell them you're dating a brilliant young actor with a promising career in the adult film industry. Then when you tell them you're dating a lawyer almost ten years your senior, it'll sound like a godsend- ouch!" He laughed and scrambled to get away as she jabbed him in the ribs with her fingers.

"Stop being horrible!" Donna insisted, laughing as she attacked him. "I'm trying to have an actual serious discussion here."

"You are having an actual serious nutty," Sam responded, attempting to catch her hand. He succeeded, but misjudged the amount of bed he had left to work with and fell off, pulling her with him to the floor. She landed on top of him, stealing the breath from him in an "ooof." "Seriously, are you okay?" he asked, winded and pinned.

Donna dropped her head onto his chest. "Yeah, I'm fine," she assured him. "It's just... do you know how long it's been since I went home for the holidays with news that I'm seeing somebody?"

"I haven't done it since I had to tell them Lisa and I weren't together anymore," Sam admitted, lightly stroking her hair. "That was awkward."

She raised her head a little to look at him. "The last time I had a boyfriend when I went home for Christmas, I still lived in Wisconsin and I was already pretty sure he was cheating on me. Very awkward. But that means what, nine years or so for both of us? The White House really is hell on relationships."

"Maybe next year we can plan to make the holiday visits together," Sam offered, knowing full well he was jumping the gun.

It earned him a smile anyway. "Maybe so," she agreed softly. "But as fun as this is, I think I'm going to have to climb off you and finish packing if I don't want to miss my flight."

"Your flight's not for five hours," Sam reminded her, looping his arms loosely around her waist and giving her a hopeful look. "If you take Lincoln once you're out of Mar Vista you can avoid the traffic on Inglewood and Sepulveda, that should save-"

She cut him off by leaning down for a kiss. "I'm getting a shuttle, but I like the way you think."

"I'll give you a ride," he offered. "It's safer, and you've got luggage-"

"Shhh, you're wasting valuable time," she pointed out, playing with the buttons on his shirt. "Do you really want to talk to me about Los Angeles traffic right now?"

He swallowed. "No, no I do not."

"Good!" she chirped, rolling off him and standing up. Sam groaned in disappointment. "Because I don't want to forget to give you your Christmas present." That sounded promising, at least, so Sam levered himself to his feet and followed her into the living room. Donna dug into the nearly-empty cupboards under her television and withdrew a fancifully decorated Christmas present, wrapped in red and spangled with bows and gold wire stars. "I didn't get to wrap very many presents this year," she admitted with a laugh. "I had to ship most of them, so yours got extra attention."

It took some concentration to get through the layers of ribbon and wire, and finally Donna threw up her hands and got scissors, but eventually Sam broke his way through to the gift inside. It was a handsome wooden box with brass fittings, and inside- "Hey, a sextant!" he exclaimed with a soft laugh, drawing it from the case and holding it to his eye. "My granddad had one of these when I was a kid. He tried to teach me celestial navigation, but I never paid enough attention to learn the stars." He set down the sextant and withdrew the matching compass, looking up at Donna. "They're beautiful."

She smiled, just a little tentatively. "They're to help you find your way," she explained. "We've got a long way to go, and I was thinking how much you love sailing..."

"It's perfect," he assured her, drawing her in for a kiss. "The first thing that goes into my new office, wherever and whenever that might be. Just never ask Toby about how well I navigate by starlight."

Now her grin was purely indulgent. "You think that story didn't make the rounds years ago?" she asked with great amusement. "I like gifts that are multifunctional."

"A gift that can encourage and mock all at once is very Donnatella Moss," Sam decided, brushing a kiss over her nose. "Thank you. I've got something for you, too. It's in my bag." He opened his briefcase and pulled out a small, professionally-wrapped package with a tiny silver bow. "I can't even unwrap a gift," he reminded her with a grin, "you don't want to see me try and wrap one."

"The wrapping is lovely," she assured him, before tearing into the package with the enthusiasm of a kid on Christmas morning. He'd learned from unfortunate experience that a long jewelry box was a much better option than a small square box for a gift because nobody got the wrong idea that way. A long, flat box was also better for showcasing the necklace Donna was opening now, a silver chain with one sapphire teardrop, exactly the color of her eyes. Perhaps not exactly, he allowed, Donna had moody blue eyes that could be almost grey or nearly green, but he'd seen the pendant and immediately thought of the look in her eyes the night they'd kissed for the first time. Right now her eyes were damp as she looked at him, holding the box in both hands. "It's gorgeous," she murmured. "It's too much."

"It's barely enough," he corrected, "especially compared to what you got me. I found your eyes in a stone, but you captured my aspirations in a box and put them in my hands. I know you won't want to wear it on the plane, but can I put it on you?" She nodded, so he carefully removed the necklace from its box and clasped it around her neck, letting his fingertips linger over the warmth of her soft, pale skin. "Perfect," he murmured.

Donna leaned in and kissed him thoroughly, then ran off to the mirror to have a look at her new gift. "I love it!" she called from the bathroom. "I'm going to wear it with... I'm going to get a new outfit so I can wear it for New Years," she decided. "And we'll find someplace to go that I can show it off." Sam could see the situation beginning to cascade rapidly, but for once he didn't mind. The idea of going out with her and being seen wasn't at all unappealing, really. He'd have to think about that. "Now, though, packing."

"You still have four and a half hours..." he tried again, making her laugh as he followed her back into the bedroom where her suitcase was laid out.

"I have a lot of work to do still," she reminded him, stopping near the bed and turning so they nearly brushed against each other. "Do you really want to have to work under time constraints?"

"I'm very good under pressure," he informed her, reaching up a hand again to run his fingers over pendant and skin.

She shivered a little, but still managed to give him a raised eyebrow as she slid her arms around him. "Oh really?" asked the veteran of a handful of States of the Union and a thousand other speeches.

"Well... under certain circumstances," he allowed, tracing her lips with the pad of his thumb. "I'm absolutely confident that in this case, with mutual cooperation we can achieve a satisfying resolution before deadline."

"I love it when you talk legal to me," she murmured, laughing as she leaned in to capture his lips with hers.

"I'll make sure to do it more often," he managed when they broke for air, then proceeded to prove both how competent he was under pressure and that the right words of legalese, spoken at the right time, could provoke both giggles and gasps. She really did like it when he used the persuasive voice.

Later on, when she'd hopped into the shower for a quick wash before dressing, Sam sat on the living room sofa and studied his new sextant and compass. There were days, he mused, when the path laid out for him seemed utterly clear, practically graven in stone. Other days, though, he had barely any idea where he was going and no clue how to get there. That clarity, he decided, was one of Donna's biggest assets. She never doubted for a minute where the road would take them, and though she was trusting him to take the lead, she'd make sure he had all the tools to do it. As a partnership, he wasn't sure things got much better than that. Suddenly he wished that they were going to spend the holiday together, wherever they went, whatever the logistical difficulties. Too soon, he reminded himself. There was no reason to rush this now. Next Christmas, things would be different.


End file.
